"[A]s soon as that book is gone from the library, do not walk -- run to your nearest public library or bookseller, and find out what your elders don't want you to know, because that's what you need to know! Don't let them bullshiat you and don't let them guide your mind, because once it starts, it never stops."

Didn't that end with all the friends running a train on a 12 year old girl?

I really wanted to enjoy King and started reading his works in the 80's. I was working offshore and there would be nothing to do for weeks at a time, so reading was the pastime. I would read half of a King book before deciding it wasn't worth the time, but would finish reading it anyway because there was nothing else to do.

Rape - in the Stand, It, Dark Tower, and other works. As well as overt racism - the kind of stuff that got Mark Furhman into trouble, as an author.

I always wonder a bit about library collection policy. The librarians cull books all the time for any number of reasons. Should they have to justify those culls somehow to ensure that the librarians aren't just tossing books they don't like?

And what about the ordering end of things? What ensures the librarians aren't just skipping books they don't like/think are offensive/disagree with politically/etc.?

whistleridge:Didn't that end with all the friends running a train on a 12 year old girl?

Yes. It also had homoerotic scenes where the bad guys (still only what? 14? 15?) touch each other's penises and give each other blowjobs. WTF, Stephen King.

you know, neither of those scenes bothered me at all. especially the boys touching each other scene. idk, small town in maine in a slightly more repressed time, and one of the kids has some gay tendencies he can't express? it probably happened just like that quite a bit.

and the guys running a train on the girl... i thought it was a bit odd but didn't really bother me. i mean, there were a lot of odd things in the book.

me texan:WI241TH: He's gotten better. 11/22/63 was definitely the best ending to a King novel I've ever read. It was very different from a normal Stephen King book, though.

After being run over he lost it and ruined the Dark Tower series. I was an "constant reader" up to that point.. No more.

you and me both. started young, read literally every word the man wrote until insomnia (it just became more "here and there" after that). he really ruined a great story. i mean, i realize it was his story, but...after book 4 it just becomes shiat.

LucklessWonder:King's 2 best books that I have read don't have disappointing endings. Mostl because they're non-fiction:

"On Writing" and

"Danse Macabre" (which I'd dearly love a sequel to)

I too thoroughly enjoyed "Danse Macabre" and always hoped he'd do a follow-up. I especially like his list of notable books and movies in the appendix, which I am slowly but surely reading/viewing. I recently finished "Full Dark, No Stars" and was pretty impressed by it. And I have yet to read "It" (yeah yeah I know) but it is in my pile of books to be read.

The first and last Stephen King wrote good books the middle one not so much.

/Went to school in Maine the library would never even think of banning his books.

I won't really argue this...when he was younger and addicted to all kinds of stuff, he did some intense stuff. Then it started getting incoherent as his problems got worse, and when he went clean, his work changed into something strange. I still think it's good, but it's not as easy to get into. I get frustrated with some of those middle period works (then again, this was when he was writing stuff like The Green Mile, so he still was good solid stuff then). After he "retired" and decided to finish the Dark Tower, it was like he found his voice again.

Hadn't read any novels since TommyKnockers, but did recently finish a book of short stories, Just After Sunset, released in 2007. Pretty good. Of course not as good as classic, drunk/coked-out King, but still pretty good.